GEO AQ Community of Practice: Role, Mission, Objectives

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
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The GEO AQ CoP seeks to promote GEOSS and air quality activities that are relevant to GEOSS. Described here are some of the activities and functions that the CoP intends to take in the near future.

This document is written in response to a need to define the goals over the next months. However, it is important that we emphasize that the most important role of the CoP is to make connections, so I have emphasized that here...

Overarching Role

Communication / potential coordination among relevant projects

A primary role of the GEO AQ CoP is to serve as a forum for communication and collaboration among the many air quality projects relevant to GEOSS. A number of these projects are described here. These include initiatives mentioned in the GEO Work Plan, and a larger set of projects relevant to Work Plan Tasks, but not referenced there.

Advising GEO and GEO committees

As described below, GEO looks to Communities of Practice to inform them on user needs from a community. An example of this is the activity currently underway to document user requirements for air quality from GEOSS.

The CoP will meet regularly via remote access, and occasionally in person (typically at larger meetings, where many participants will be present). These meetings will serve as an opportunity to learn about the activities of colleagues and find opportunities to collaborate, and an opportunity to discuss work the group will tackle (as a group).

The CoP will serve as a visible point-of-entry for members of the air quality community interested in finding ways to participate in GEOSS, and find out what GEOSS and can do for their work. Conversely, the CoP will serve GEO by providing information about what the air quality community needs from GEOSS.

The CoP will also provide GEO with feedback on Air Quality Tasks in the GEO Work Plan. The CoP will review whether the plan reflects the relevant activities underway, and particularly whether Tasks have participation from those relevant tasks.

This role is in line with the GEO vision of a Community of Practice...

GEO View of Communities of Practice

Definition: A Community of Practice (CoP) is a user-led community of stakeholders, from providers to the final beneficiaries of Earth observation data and information, with a common interest in specific aspects of societal benefits to be realized by GEOSS implementation.

Objectives: Each CoP will have slightly different objectives, however common objectives will include:

  • Identify, gather, and seek agreement on their particular user community requirements;
    • GEO Task US0901a collects EO needs from users and makes explicit statement to "Wherever possible, the Advisory Groups involve members of the GEO Communities of Practice."
  • Provide a forum for cooperation of activities where GEOSS adds value to existing initiatives, to identify linkages and opportunities for collaborative strategic and technical projects and to coordinate the delivery of some GEOSS targets to enable the realization of societal benefits
  • Report on progress and provide updates to the User Interface Committee, GEO and other stakeholder communities as appropriate;
  • Advise the User Interface Committee, other CoPs and GEO on matters relating to their particular area of interest or societal benefit, and on cross-cutting issues of interest to the CoP.
  • Provide an informal point of contact for members or other jurisdictions on the specific benefit or interest area that affect more than one organization;

Participants: Each Community of Practice should include representatives from GEO Members, Participating Organizations and any other stakeholders that have similar interests, goals, and or objectives - working closely together to create a forum for efficient and effective intelligence and advice to be provided to GEO for the successful implementation of GEOSS. Both developing and developed countries will be represented.

More information on Communities of Practice

Possible Work for the Group Over the Next 6 months (?)

The AQ CoP is an appropriate group to take on some of broad tasks of defining needs, documenting best practices, and defining conventions to make GEOSS work. We listed some possible tasks at ESIP Summer Meeting. Of those, these are the broad tasks, directly relevant to GEOSS AQ functionality:

The AQ CoP will seek input from the wider community on these initiatives.

GEO AQ Community of Practice Evolution